Hey there, reader,
It’s a good day, let’s make it more gooder with some good music – join me as we work in our very cool experimental lounge-pop whatever this is:
Let’s get into it.
Featured Art of the month: “The Mad Banquet”, by NozK3ll – and… a fanart contest?! THE fanart contest?!
He’s really outdone himself this time. Bonus points if you can guess who everyone’s dressed as.
Knight Love seems so tickled about something – I can only wonder what has her cat in a bag like that. Law and Order, on the other hand, don’t seem too keen on this whole thing.
Speaking of art – daring new announcement! Fire up your pencils!
To tide everyone over in the wait for exciting new adventures within the Holy Verses, I’ve decided to run the biggest fanart contest yet – due to a bet with a beloved fellow author, I also will be submitting something, so you can see me at my very artistic best (don’t get your hopes up).
I present to you the First Annual Holyverse Fanart Contest!
Here’s the details:
What: draw the coolest, funniest, prettiest, or all-in-all most enjoyable piece of art you can related to the Holy Verses books and their characters. Entries will be voted upon in the week following the contest in the Discord server – winners picked by mob rule!
When: The contest period starts today until the end of July 15th. Don’t worry about posting late, votes won’t begin until after the July 15th deadline!
Who: Myself, other authors, lots of artists, and of course, you.
Where: Post your entries direct to the #Holyverse-Fanart-Contest channel in the official discord at https://discord.gg/UeNhd2HjQQ.
Why?!: Because the practice of art, be it awesome, hilariously bad, or both, is gratifying to the heart and soul of all who gaze upon it.
The reward tiers:
Overall:
1st (most votes) : $150 commission to the artist of your choice (mediated by yours truly) or $100 cash – ultra-rare signed misprint copy of Occult Vengeance, Condemnation, or Woodcastle (your choice), guaranteed Featured Art spot for the following month’s newsletter, as well as one of the secret bookmarks.
2nd: $75 commission to the artist of your choice (mediated by yours truly) or $50 cash, as well as one of the secret bookmarks.
3rd: $20 as well as one of the secret bookmarks.
Honorable mentions (cannot be the same as a top 3 winner)
Funniest: $20
Most Colorful: $20
Coolest: $20
The Fine Print:
-All reward payments will be made by winner’s choice of Paypal, Cashapp, Venmo, or Remitly.
-Unlimited submissions per Entrant, but only one reward in the case of an entrant placing first in more than one catagory, they will receive the highest prize, with the second-highest votes receiving the follow up reward.
-Depending on Shipping fees, your physical rewards may not arrive right away – be patient!
-Winners picking the commission route will detail the artist of their choice, either someone inside the competition, on skeb, or some other kind of art-fund platform. I’ll send your details as well as the payment to them in the winner’s name. This will be one commission, not to exceed the prize amount – remaining funds will be considered lost to the winner.
-Every other normal disclaimer in normal online art contests apply. If you know what I’m talking about you know what’s right and wrong – thank you.
Hope to see you there! You have a whole month to put together your entries, so take your time and tell your friends.
Next on the docket…
Cover Reveal: Xtreme Force book 2!
Get a load of this one!
Preorders opening soon – the latest in slashing-stabbing-cussing-drug-addled super adventure Subspace adventure is on its way for publication this year, most likely early to mid fall. Look forward to it!
This book took FOREVER to get right, but I’m very pleased with the way it turned out. I hope you agree, and also like THe Captain, because The Captain’s in this one.
Another good lore piece we have in this one is the first in narrative appearance of a certain mythical super species…
Reflection: Distance and Plans – an exercise in objectivity
It’s easy to get blinded by your passion.
If you love something so much that it becomes your nature to work on it, you can fail to recognize when something is edging in on it. There’s a lot of important priorities in life that are worth your time, and it’s easy to let the ones you perceive as “necessary” to get in the way.
But every now and again you’re forced out of that loop, be it by necessity in family, travel, or work, or simply by a self-imposed, monk-like reclusion.
It’s here, in those moments where you’re far away from your life and can look from the outside in, that things truly begin to make sense.
For me, this isn’t a state I can achieve in just a day of rest – it usually takes about a week before I start having the truly clear-headed ideas that help me focus, acknowledge, and plan out my goals, both as an author, and as the spirit inside this four-eyed shell I swirl around in.
… Sorry, maybe I should preface this a little.
After sending in Xtreme Force’s second book to the publisher, I immediately begun my usual process of planning and plotting the next book, as well as remeasuring my targets for how the characters and story would develop in relation to The Great Work as a whole.
Something small came up, and I decided to focus on that, pulling away from the writing for what was just supposed to be a day or two, and then get right back to my usual schedule of brainlessly writing by emotion and spirit alone. This small event pulled me out of my jam just long enough to cause me to push on with this originally small project, and turn it into a bigger one.
I was working on something related but separate from the writing and my usual goals, but this gave me enough space to actually look things over, and then I got to looking at my life once more – and through those distant lenses, what I saw surprised me.
I consider myself both an optimist and an optimizer: I understand that, so long as I commit myself whole-heartedly to something, eventually my expectations will manifest with a level equivalent to the effort I apply to it – such is the potential of all humans to create something out of thin air by using belief alone.
That said, the process for how we go about to making these dreams come true is an everlasting march of hard work, evaluation, and planning. It’s a circular process in which you work at your very highest potential, stop long enough to catch your breath, and then look at the distance you crossed, asking yourself how you can cross a similar distance more gracefully and quickly the next time.
I had another one of those “recovering after the sprint” moments to realize I hadn’t been sprinting nearly as quickly as I could be.
Of course, there’s all sorts of excuses we use to remain within the band of “good enough” but a time has been creeping up on me where my “good enough” simply is not good enough.
Have you ever had a moment where, after you thought you’ve done everything you could, you saw a simple way to do even more, and that your initial assumptions were just wishful, limited thinking?
It was a moment like that.
Anyway, try not to read too much into this. I’m not really in the business of giving advice, but I can at least talk about what has been working for me. I’ve been crossing a lot of milestones recently, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to slow down, in fact, I’m beginning to see it as a reason to increase momentum. I have to find new ways to challenge myself, because the challenge is what’s fulfilling, not the achievement.
Set a goal, complete it, and then carefully look at how you completed that goal before setting the new one.
Ideas to chew on.
Conclusion:
It’s been a busy month, but one filled with good things. I’ve been keeping myself on the grind stone and sharpening away, and I hope you’ve been up to something good, too. Our dreams only die once they’re abandoned, after all.
All the best,
Kell Inkston
